Ten minutes before practice Thursday, Spurs guard Roger Mason Jr. found himself in a place he never envisioned before the season began.

He was running wind sprints under the supervision of strength coach Mike Brungardt, the traditional pre-practice conditioning routine for the players who don't often play.

Mason, a starter for 71 games last season, had logged just 4 minutes, 54 seconds in a victory over Sacramento the night before, a turn of events he acknowledged to be a tad disappointing.

"I had a good year last year, and I'm a better player this year," said Mason, who averaged a career-best 11.8 points a season ago. "I want a chance to show that."

The way Gregg Popovich's Tilt-A-Whirl rotation is turning these days, Mason might only need to wait a few games and check back.

Heading into the season's 20th game tonight against Charlotte, Popovich has made few concrete decisions of whom to play and when. He appears fairly set on a starting five, trotting out Tony Parker, Keith Bogans, Richard Jefferson, Tim Duncan and Antonio McDyess for nine consecutive games.

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Outside of that, Popovich says, "the rotation is ridiculous."

The Spurs added several new faces over the offseason, offering their coach a candy shop of combinations to taste test. So far, Popovich has dabbled in almost every permutation imaginable.

For players like Mason on the outskirts of the rotation, it's caused minutes to move like opposite ends of a seesaw.

Popovich admits this isn't a particularly good way of getting players into a comfort zone, but deems it necessary to the process of rotation construction.

"At some point, I have to make decisions on who is doing the best job and who fits the best," Popovich said, "but I need to get enough samples of minutes in my computer before I decide what it's going to be."

Lately, the two most notable victims of Popovich's rotating rotation have been Mason and Bogans.

Mason had put together four consecutive double-digit scoring games before straining his hamstring Nov. 27. He returned six nights later to find his minutes on a yo-yo.

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Against Denver last week, Mason played only 2:46. Against Sacramento, he didn't enter the game until the fourth quarter, then scored six points in five minutes.

Bogans' minutes have also fluctuated - 8:48 one game at Utah, 24:47 the next against the Kings.

Both guards' playing time has dipped since Manu Ginobili returned from injury. Michael Finley's potential return from an ankle sprain later this month could throw another wrench into the mix.

Bogans said he understands a certain amount of experimentation is required at this juncture.

"There are a lot of new guys," Bogans said. "You want it to happen overnight, but you know it doesn't happen that way."

Typically, minutes and roles tend to take on an air of permanence during the Spurs' annual February rodeo road trip.Against Sacramento on Wednesday, Popovich shortened the rotation, giving more than 15 minutes to only eight players.

"Nothing is set in stone, that's for sure," Popovich said.

For a player like Mason, that is encouraging news. In the meantime, there he was Thursday, huffing and puffing before practice had even begun, in a place he never expected to be.

"Is it frustrating for some guys? Sure," Mason said. "Some of us haven't been used to this. At the same time, we all know what the goal is, and that's to win a championship. Whatever pieces Pop needs to move around to figure it out, all we can do as players is play."